This disclosure relates generally to accessing information in a database directory and more particularly to querying a database directory containing user information associated with a user community.
Generally, a community is a group of people who typically share a common interest. With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, many companies are forming communities through intranets and extranets, for employees, suppliers, partners and clients. The communities make it easier and less expensive for the employees, suppliers, partners and clients to work together. In the context of computer services, these people are known as computer users or simply users. Information on each of the users in the communities is stored in a broad range of directories and databases. The information may comprise the user's name, location, telephone number, organization, login identification, password, etc. Other information may comprise the user's access privileges to resources such as applications and content. The directories may also store information on the physical devices (e.g., personal computers, servers, printers, routers, communication servers, etc.) in the networks that support the communities. Additional information may comprise the services (e.g., operating systems, applications, shared-file systems, print queues, etc.) available to each of the physical devices. All of the above information is generally known as community-based computer services.
The administration (i.e., the creation, maintenance, modification, updating and disabling) of these community-based computer services becomes difficult as the communities grow in size and complexity. In many cases, administration becomes an almost impossible task, unless a community is subdivided into more manageable sub-communities. With the creation of these sub-communities, it becomes desirable to use a team of administrators who share responsibilities for administrating the community by assigning different individuals to administer the sub-communities. This type of administration is referred to as delegated administration.
Currently available administration tools that facilitate delegated administration do have their drawbacks. For instance, as the number of sub-communities grows, it becomes necessary to search through sub-community specifications to find any sub-community that satisfies a search pattern. There are several reasons why it may be necessary to search through sub-community specifications. One reason is to identify in which sub-communities a potential user would be a member. Another reason is to determine if a sub-community exists covering a subset of users with certain common characteristics. In effect, this type of search is analogous to finding all users with certain characteristics; however, the community search finds all communities with certain characteristics. The currently available administration tools do not have the functionality to search through sub-community specifications to find any sub-community that satisfies a search pattern. Therefore, there is a need for an administration tool that provides the capability to search through sub-community specifications to find any sub-community that satisfies a search pattern.